Says Mumbai’s decentralised approach needs to be adopted at the national level.
The decentralised approach Mumbai has adopted in Covid-19 containment needs to be adopted at the national level, the Health Ministry has said.
“Control rooms were created for engaging with citizens but they were not at Municipal Corporation level but were at the ward level, for each of the 24 wards. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which receives lab results, passes them on to the respective ward acting as a hub during the process and helping in the reduction of the caseload in each ward. Each wardroom has been equipped with 30 telephone lines, managed by 10 telephone operator, 10 doctors as well as 10 ambulances. There were also 10 dashboards highlighting information about the availability of beds. This ensured that citizens did not face any difficulty in getting admission
to hospitals,” pointed out Joint Secretary, Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, at the Covid-19 media briefing.
“In addition to these, 800 SUVs were refurbished to convert them into makeshift ambulances. A software platform was created to track and manage these ambulances. All these systems work together to ensure that patients do not face problems in finding beds,” the Joint Secretary said, appreciating the systematic efforts of the municipal corporation in fighting Covid-19 in one of the biggest cities in the country.
How Pune contained the upsurge of Covid-19 cases drew praise from the Ministry, as a fine example that shows how containment measures can help restrict the spread of the disease.
When Pune witnessed a 69.7% case positivity rate in the first week of March 2021, it started measures like night curfew, imposed from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. This resulted in two things: reduction in the growth trajectory of Covid cases, reduction in Covid positivity rate, as positivity rate reduced from 41.8% to 23.4%.
“We have observed that strict measures like restrictions on mass gatherings and the intermingling of people along with the closing of non-essential activities for 15 days reduce the rate of growth of cases and cases start plateauing,” the Joint Secretary said.
